Standard Member

I'm moving to a location in the Scottish Highlands where BBC Freeview is not available and do not particularly want Sky - the standard five channels I currently get via terrestial will do fine. Trouble is the aerial reception is not good and the house does have a satellite dish so I've acquired a panasonic Sky digibox from a friend and a Sky viewing card, yellow house and activated, via ebay. I hit the following problems.

1. On occasions I just get a message saying there is no satellite signal. If Idisconnect and recycle I may then get reception again

2. But then, at present I can only get BBC Emidlands on 101, Chan4 0n 104 and Chan 5 on 105. BBC2 England and ITV do not at present appear although a month ago I did get them for a couple of days.

3. If I go to say 941 for BBC1 Scotalnd again the no satellite signal message appears.

It does not appear to be a dish problem - all the time there is a good 18 volts
at the masthead.

Any suggestions woul be very gratefully received - or do I just give in and get Sky on a minimum contract for a year

Well-known Member

The dish could be slightly out of alignment, the LNB could be faulty or need adjusting and the cable could be water damaged not to mention a dodgy tuner in the digibox.
The FTV card was registered for a different region and the FTV channels take time to be recognised that's assuming you have a good lock on the default transponder in the first place.

SKY's "freesat" offer is out now, £150 for a brand new installation with FTV smartcard and full warranty with no monthly subscription. Probably a better option then spending money getting your current hardware up and running. Assuming you have never had a subsidised SKY install before you can take advantage of their offers, get free hardware but take out a 12 month contract but packages can be adjusted within the 12 months to the minimum value.

"The Nac Mac Feegle are, well, theyre like tiny little Scottish Smurfs who have seen Braveheart altogether too many times."Gatecast